MONTEREY — Will sustainably-caught swordfish receive a wave of support from Central Coast fishermen, consumers and restaurateurs?

Clean-fishing advocates sure hope so as efforts continue to phase out the use of drift gillnets — the mile-long, 100-foot-wide nets currently used to catch swordfish — which commonly collect and kill protected species like whales, dolphins, and sea turtles.

On Sept. 28, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1017, which requires the state Department of Fish and Wildlife get funding for and enact a transition program that would help fishermen switch to alternative fishing gear.

Under the program, up to $10,000 would be offered for fisheries to turn in their drift gillnet permits, and transition to “clean-fishing” gear.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has until March of 2020 to roll out the drift gillnet “buyout.” However, the department still needs to raise $1 million to trigger the revocation of all drift gillnet permits. The money would have to come from federal funding or private donor sources.

“The phaseout of mile-long drift gillnets is a long time coming. California is the last state in the nation to disallow the use of large mesh swordfish drift gillnets,” says Ashley Blacow, Pacific policy manager for Oceana.

Key to the phaseout, advocates say, is the introduction of a replacement method called “deep-set buoy gear.”

How the new gear works

It works like this —buoys float on the surface of the water, connected by a main fishing line. From this main line, a vertical fishing line extends to depths of up to 1,200 feet, with up to 30 hooks strategically placed to target swordfish.

Once the fish is caught on the line, a flag or light alerts the fisherman. They then pull up the line and release any accidental catch within minutes. In seven years of trials using deep-set buoy gear no protected species were killed.

Pulling up the catch within minutes means fresher swordfish, that gets to market within days. Swordfish caught by drift gillnet often sit on ice for up to a month before making its way to the dinner plate.

Geoff Shester, who directs Oceana’s California campaign, sees the introduction of the gear as a win-win for fishermen and ocean species

“We could have a buoy gear fishery that’s providing way more jobs, much more valuable swordfish, supplying local demand — without the bycatch — and then we could hold other countries to the same standards,” says Shester.

Pacific Fishery Management Council has issued 40 permits to test the gear in waters off the West Coast. If authorized, the deep-set buoy gear fishery would launch in 2020, around the same time as the drift gillnet permit buyout program would begin.

Can clean swordfish gear gain traction in Monterey?

So far deep-set buoy gear has been most successful in Southern California. The rougher fall and winter conditions in Central and North Coast waters would make the clean-gear fishery more challenging for fishermen in Monterey County.

“Free floating buoys and 25 knots of wind and a swell can be problematic for losing gear,” says Chugey Sepulveda, who developed the innovative fishing method with Oceana and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

To address this, he and his team at the Pfleger Institute of Environment Research are looking into linking more buoys together so the gear is able to withstand rougher conditions.

Commercial fisherman Jerid Rold works in the Moss Landing Harbor. He isn’t sure the “clean fishing” gear is feasible for many small scale operations because of ocean conditions. (Vern Fisher – Monterey Herald)

Even still, Jerid Rold, a fourth generation Moss Landing fishermen, isn’t sure that the gear is feasible for small scale operations, such as his uncle’s Bay Fresh Seafoods.

“The most swordfish that’s produced off our coast is between October and December,” Rold says. “Those are treacherous months. Those are months you don’t belong out there in a 40-foot boat. You need a real boat. We’re talking about 60- to 70-foot.”

The cost of fuel to get up to 200 miles off-shore, a three-man crew, and high-tech satellite equipment that pinpoints swordfish would be too much for Bay Fresh to bear Rold says.

Kit Dahl, staff officer at Pacific Fishery Management Council, explains another prominent worry among fishermen is that the catch less, sell for more model of the buoy gear fishery isn’t economically sustainable.

For a deep-set buoy gear fishery to produce as much swordfish as drift gillnets, a lot of fishermen would have to be interested and be on the water for long periods of time during swordfish season, says Dahl.

Currently, imported swordfish from the global market and Atlantic Ocean go for $2.50 to $4.50 a pound. So far, buoy-gear caught swordfish has been selling for up to $8 per pound, but could go upward of $10 per pound. That translates to shoppers paying roughly $20 a pound for swordfish.

Sal Tringali, president of Monterey Fish Co., says the success of a sustainable swordfish fishery depends on consumers: “If the customers are willing to pay the price, than the restaurants would go for it.”

The pelagic longline option

Anticipating that in the coming year drift gillnets will be phased out, other less-than-sustainable fishing methods like pelagic longline are being considered by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Pelagic longlines can extend up to 60 miles in length with hundreds to thousands of hooks beneath the surface. The gear has been banned in California since 1989, but currently the National Marine Fisheries Service is considering a permit application for the use of a 60-mile long pelagic longline in West Coast waters.

Oceana analyzed how often pelagic longline fishermen in Hawaii threw over accidental catch, like dolphins, and found the rates were similar to drift gillnets; almost half of all the catch was unintentional.

“We don’t win if we replace one very dirty damaging gear for another, and that’s what the pelagic longlines are,” Shester says.

Marc Gorelnik, vice chair of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, contends the pelagic longline permit recently approved by the Council would be a trial to see if the method can function as derivation of buoy gear with fishermen actively tending the line, so they could release bycatch quickly. Before the long line permit would be used in West Coast waters though, it still needs to be approved by National Marine Fisheries Service.

“The rest of the world is fishing on the high seas with longlines. Why are we disadvantaging U.S. production, where at least we can keep an eye on things?” Gorelnik said on the ideology of organizations like the National Marine Fishery Service, which is interested in expanding pelagic longline fishing in the Pacific.

“The fact we’ve kept the pelagic long line fishery out, is the main reason why still do we have a blue Serengeti coast,” counters Shester. Here in Monterey, he says: “You have just one of the most amazing concentrations of marine mammals and large sharks and predators in the world’s oceans.”

Will a deep-set buoy gear fishery be able to meet market demand?

Some aren’t sure if the “catch less, sell for more” sustainable model of the buoy-gear will be competitive with cheaper imports from Costa Rica and Ecuador.

“Imports really hurt us sometimes,” says Donald Krebs, who has hunted swordfish for 40 years, and is part of the Pfleger Institute team experimenting with buoy gear, “If you’re only catching 10 fish (per) trip that’s not going to cut it,” he says of the current swordfish market.

“If you’re going to try and make a big dent in our reliance on imports, you’re going to have to be using some other form of gear,” says Sepulveda, who directs research at the Pfleger Institute.

Sepulveda explained that buoy gear is designed to be an alternative to hunting methods, like harpoon.

It is still possible, though, that linked buoy gear could be a viable replacement for drift gillnets in the sustainable-seafood, niche market.

Shester says that patience is needed to expand the sustainable swordfish market, “You have to build the market as you build the fishery.” He stays optimistic that sustainably caught swordfish will gain traction here.

“California and the West Coast, specifically the Monterey Bay, is the epicenter for sustainable seafood,” he says, “If people knew there was a clean, sustainable way to catch swordfish, that there was an abundant resource off our coast supporting local fishermen, I think the demand would be insatiable.”